Bah Humbug
by Daughter of Hypnos
Summary: "But it's Christmas Eve! You can't do that!" She protested. "He can do as he pleases," She said back. "Happy birthday, Jesus." Doing the dishes with a complete stranger is not always the worst way to spend Christmas Eve.


Rachel sat with her cabin, trying to get warm from the campfire, but not succeeding. So she sat there waiting for the campfire to end Christmas Eve so she could go back to her nice, warm cabin. Cold nights like this reminded her of her barn in Oklahoma. She looked around and saw a bunch of other frozen campers, even the ever-energetic Apollo cabin was shivering.

Rachel saw one of the Daughters of Apollo lean over to her brother, "No one is listening, we could start singing Springtime For Hitler and no one would notice."

That was true, no one really cared about the campfire songs tonight. For somewhere that had control over the weather, you would think it would be warmer than twenty degrees. Even the ground of the ampatheater was covered in snow, packed down by everyone standing on it.

Rachel blew a piece of loose blond hair from her face only to have it fall back. Freezing, damp, and easily frustrated, Rachel angrily shoved the piece of hair under her black wool hat and went back to shivering.

Can't we just leave? Rachel thought. Nothing of value is happening.

Suddenly, something of value did happen. Rachel let out a very loud, very girly, very uncharacteristic scream as something hard, wet, and cold hit her square in the back of the head.

She turned around to see the Styx cabin laughing. With anger practically radiating off of her, Rachel leaned down and scooped up a pile of snow and packed it into a ball. She whipped it as hard as she could at the cabin. The rest of the camp remained oblivious to the whole things, they were more absorbed in their body heat. Or lack-there-of.

The Styx cabin returned the throw but missed Rachel and hit Malcolm, her older brother. Rachel, through her laughing, made another snowball and threw it top speed at the Styx cabin, but they ducked and the snowball hit Nyssa, daughter of Hephaestus in the chest. She had a look of shock on her face and Rachel wanted to stand and apologies but she didn't get a chance. Nyssa's brother Leo started laughing at Nyssa, so she took a hand full of snow and smashed it in his face.

Like a cartoon scene, this set off a camp-wide snowball fight. It lasted for ten minutes until the snow was almost all gone. But the lack of snow wasn't what stopped the snow balls, (when it ran out weapons and punches would have started flying to compensate)no, it was Chiron, stomping his hove loudly on the ground.

"Who started this?" He asked loudly.

"It was them," A ten-year-old son of Apollo yelled pointing at Rachel and a daughter of Styx, and then he slapped his hand over his mouth. The kid meant well, Rachel knew that. When he was born his dad, God of Truth, tried to give him a blessing so he could always tell when someone was lying. It went wrong and now he could never tell a lie; people called him Pinocchio.

Despite her knowledge of his gift/curse, Rachel had never been madder, now she would be stuck cleaning dishes or scrubbing tiles on Christmas Eve.

"You two," he beckoned them to follow him, and they did as they were told.

Soon they were thawing in the Big House. "Which one threw the first snow ball?"

Without missing a beat, Rachel pointed at the dark hair girl standing next to her. Rachel didn't want to be a tattletale but she felt like she had no choice. Rachel did feel bad though, the girl looked sad and scared and no more than twelve.

"Well, no matter. Both of you kitchen duty, now."

"But it's Christmas Eve!" The little girl protested. "You can't do that,"

"He's the camp Director," Rachel said. Now seemed like the perfect time for some ass kissing, "He can do as he pleases."

"Happy Birthday, Jesus." The girl mumbled.

"Both of you. Kitchen. Now." Chiron commanded. They did as they were told, hanging their heads as they went.

They worked on the dishes in silence for the first ten minutes. The little voice inside Rachel's head kept telling her to talk to the other girl. Rachel wasn't very good at instigating conversation, so she used a question to try and cover it up. "So, what's your name?"

The question came out sounding awkward and stupid for some reason. She could usually get along with anyone, but that was usually after she got to know him or her.

"Fain." She said, dropping the conversation. The light from the lava cleaning products illuminated her dark Hispanic skin so that it almost glowed, the light reflected in her brown eyes, making it look like her eyes were on fire.

"Um… how old are you?" Rachel asked.

"Eleven." She replied just as coldly as before.

"I'm Rachel, I'm thirteen."

"That's nice." Fain didn't sound sarcastic, just bored and uninterested.

A few more minutes passed in silence and Rachel's mind began to wander until it stumbled upon something she hadn't thought of.

"Why did you throw the snow ball at me?" She asked Fain.

Fain blushed, or at least Rachel thought she did, it could have been the lighting. Fain mumbled something but all Rachel heard was "aiming" and "brother".

"What?"

"I was among for your brother." She said louder.

"Which one?"

"Bobby."

"Bug Boy?" Rachel asked, laughing. The term 'Bug Boy' was a term of endearment for Bobby in the Athena cabin because his large round eyes and equally round face made him look like a bug.

"Shut up. I've tried talking to him, but every time I try I… I get nervous and start talking in Spanish. Then he just stares at me like I'm from another planet."

Rachel started laughing. "Hey!" Fain protested.

"It's okay, really it's cute. Don't worry thought, you're only eleven, you have plenty of time."

That didn't keep Fain from blushing. "So, I bet you have a guy that makes you like that. Or even worse." Fain accused.

Rachel thought of Zane in the Nike Cabin. He had dark black hair and eyes so blue you could almost see through them. Dark hair, light eyes, her favorite combination.

The thought of him made Rachel smile, and it didn't go unnoticed. Fain nudged her playfully.

"It doesn't matter, he doesn't know I exist." Rachel told her.

"Oh gods, could girls please stop saying that? I don't know if you know this but they have a cure for this invisibility now. It's called 'Talking'. Maybe you've heard of it? You know verbal communication?"

Rachel looked at her and said, "One does not simply walk into Mordor."

"I didn't…. I don't… what does that even…. I didn't say anything about walking."

Rachel laughed again, " I know you didn't."

"They why did you bring it up?"

"Because I take every opportunity I get to turn something into an obscure Lord of the Rings Reference."

"Oh great, I'm stuck here doing dishes with a dork."

The rest of the night went by quickly. The two girls talked about most things. Rachel learned Fain could tell when ever someone made a promise on the River Styx. Rachel asked her to prove it and Fain said that Will Solace had just sworn to his girlfriend Nyssa that "they would leave tomorrow." Leave for where, Fain wasn't sure, and Rachel didn't want to know. The romance between two eighteen-year-olds was not something Rachel wanted too much detail on.

Rachel told Fain about her horse, Apollo, though she left out the detail of her past, not willing to relive it yet.

Fain kept trying to get Rachel to tell her whom she liked, but Rachel refused. "Is it a girl?" Fain asked finally, "Because if it is, you can tell me, I won't judge you."

"No! It's not a girl!"

"Then who?"

"I'm not telling you."

They kept talking and laughing until Chiron came in and told them they could go back to their cabins, he would have the Harpies finish. He let them both have a ginger bread man and shoed them out of the kitchen.

They left the kitchen and entered the dark, cold night. It had gotten even colder since the campfire and the two of them were in a mini-run to get back to their cabins.

They reached the Athena Cabin first, but it was so cold, Fain didn't stop moving to say goodbye, she just wave and kept running, the foot of the gingerbread man hanging out of her mouth.

Rachel walked into the cabin as quietly as possible. The warmth of the cabin instantly started defrosting her. She took her boots off and walked to her bed. She was about to climb in, still in her cloths (she decided she was too tire to change), then looked at Bobby, who had the bed under hers. She kicked it and he rolled over to look at her. He looked dazed and tired and a bit like David after the dentist.

"Hey Bobby, you know that girl you like?" She asked. He nodded listlessly. "Well, a little birdie tells me she likes you too."

Bobby didn't seem to register what she had said to him, he just rolled over and started snoring.

"Merry Christmas Bug Boy." She said smiling, before climbing to bed.

* * *

><p><strong>This was supposed to be up by Christmas, but my Wi-Fi hasn't been working right for days. It will work for a few minutes then crap out on me, so sorry for it being late. This was a prize for 2maidengoddessess these were her characters, except for Bobby, Zane, and those Apollo children. There was nothing about them in the character description about boys but it was all I could come up with. Did you like the little bit of WillXNyssa I threw in? Ah yes, Will and Nyssa is like Herpes and the Transformers Franchise, you can never be quite so sure that it's gone away for good.<strong>

**Well, I hope you enjoyed that.**


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